Thursday, September 18, 2008

I finally did it. I started a very small organic bakery in my home where my customers are friends and neighbours. This was an idea I toyed around with after doing an insane amount of baking for the street fair at the boys' school. Since I still have a real job, I bake twice a week--it is a great way to relax and decompress after a day of teaching. Since Wednesday night is a baking night, I won't always have a blog post for that day (as you probably noticed yesterday). But I am sure you can all get along without me.

VeganDad, good for you! Make sure you are costing the ingredients for your recipes; also include your time, per hour, and the energy cost for baking your bread! If you are handy and have the outside space, you might consider building your own outdoor wood burning oven. It gives you even more fantastic tasting bread.

Anon,I did do a cost analysis of the materials (energy was a little tricky to calculate) to arrive at my prices. The prices are fair, give me some profit, but I am not going to get rich off this business. I am just spreading organic vegan love around the neighbourhood. I think the wood oven will have to wait, though it sounds totally awesome.

First, are you running this business out of your home or do you have a shop? I'm curious to know, because I'm a vegan dad too and love working in the kitchen and wondering if this is something I could do in my neighborhood.

Second, it looks like from the comments people are looking to order over the net -- there is a start up company that I know of in my "neck of the woods" that might be able to help you out. It's http://foodzie.com/. Foodzie is an online marketplace where you can discover and buy food from small artisan producers and growers.

I am so excited for you!!! That has also been a dream of mine for a few years. How did you go about starting your bakery business? I would love any tips you could give those of us that would like to follow along in your footsteps.

debyi,I started very small. A few people expressed an interest in my baking after I made some stuff for a school street fair, so I sent an email out to a few of them. Word of mouth brought in a few more customers. This way I could see how much I could bake in a night, and how many customers I could handle. I put orders into a spread sheet, develop a baking plan for the night (rising and baking times). Everything has been smooth so far, and I think I could take on a few more customers. I like the bake to order system since I don't make any extra bread or have leftover inventory. I feature a new bread ever month to keep things interesting.